Handi Mobility Fashions iPhone Bus Site for Translink
Today Translink relaunched m.translink.ca, a mobile site providing bus schedules, now optimized for the iPhone or iPod Touch. It’s so new that Translink hasn’t announced it yet, but the dudes at Handi Mobility, who are behind it, pinged it Twitter today soliciting feedback.
The site lists data for Translink buses, the Skytrain, West Coast Express, and Seabus. Enter either a route or stop number, to retrieve real time schedule information. Commonly used stops can be saved for future use. As a special iPhone-y function, turning the phone sideways presents a list of maps.
In a message to the vanajax list, Igor Faletski of Handi writes…
Every second person coming to TransLink’s mobile site uses the iPhone, so we had to create an amazing experience for these early adopters. Our goal is to make commuting even better – by providing complete schedule information, alerts, GMail-style favourites and transit maps.
The next release will provide additional features – we’re going to add the Buzzer, rider feedback and location-based functionality (through a downloadable AppStore app).
Handi Mobility has had an interesting relationship with Translink. Last year Handi Mobility was the first to bring bus schedules to mobiles with their MyBus Facebook application and SMS service. That app was created with no cooperation from Translink and relied on scraped data. Not long after Translink released their own SMS service, but later commissioned Handi to adapt MyBus into Next Bus as an official, Translink-branded Facebook app.
